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When cutting staff at the Pentagon, don't eliminate the thin layer that assures civilian control.

Donald Rumsfeld

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Donald Rumsfeld
Age: 88 †
Born: 1932
Born: July 9
Died: 2021
Died: June 29
Author
Businessperson
Diplomat
Former U.S. Secretary Of Defense
Military Officer
Politician
Chicago
Illinois
Donald Henry Rumsfeld
Thin
Assures
Cutting
Civilian
Control
Pentagon
Layer
Civilians
Eliminate
Layers
Staff

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Well, so be it. Nothing's perfect in life, so you have an election that's not quite perfect. Is it better than not having an election? You bet.
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If you look ahead 10 years, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the people of Russia had become fans of missile defence.
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What is needed [to combat terrorism], in my view, is resolve, not retreat courage, not concession. Rather than thinking in terms of an exit strategy, focus on a strategy for success.
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Oh my goodness gracious, what you can buy off the Internet in terms of overhead photography. A trained ape can know an awful lot of what is going on in this world, just by punching on his mouse, for a relatively modest cost.
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[on Osama bin Laden] He is either alive and well or alive and not too well or not alive.
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The worst mistake is to have the best ladder and the wrong wall.
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Success tends to go not to the person who is error-free, because he also tends to be risk-averse. Rather it goes to the person who recognizes that life is pretty much a percentage business. It isn't making mistakes that's critical it's correcting them and getting on with the principal task.
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Work continuously to trim the White House staff from your first day to your last. All the pressures are to the contrary.
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Remember where you came from.
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Imagine, a September 11 with weapons of mass destruction. It's not 3,000. It's tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children.
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Arguments of convenience lack integrity and inevitably trip you up.
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Congress, the press, and the bureaucracy too often focus on how much money or effort is spent, rather than whether the money or effort actually achieves the announced goal.
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Certainty without power can be interesting, even amusing. Certainty with power can be dangerous.
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We'll have to deal with the networks. One of the ways to do that is to drain the swamp they live in. And that means dealing not only with the terrorists, but those who harbor terrorists. This will take a long, sustained effort. It will require the support of the American people as well as our friends and allies around the world.
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Pieces of intelligence, scraps of intelligence...you run down leads and you run down leads, and you hope that sometimes it works.
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Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.
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Every country should be tired of going to war. War is a terrible thing. If I had been in Congress, as much as I would be inclined naturally to be supportive of a president, any president, I would have voted no, had the issue come to a vote.
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